Diputation: Theoretical studies of lattice- and spin-polarons

Theoretical studies of lattice- and spin-polarons are presented in this thesis, where the primary tool is ab-initio electronic structure calculations. The studies are performed with employment of a variety of analytical and computational methods.

For lattice-polarons, we present an analytical study where multipolaron solutions were found in the framework of the Holstein 1D molecular crystal model. Interestingly, we found a new periodic, dnoidal, solution for the multipolaron system. In addition to it, we examined the stability of multipolaron solutions, and it was found that cnoidal and dnoidal solutions stabilize in different ranges of the parameter space. Moreover, we add to the model nonlocal effects and described dynamics in terms of internal solitonic modes.

Hole-polaron localization accompanying the formation of a cation vacancy in bulk MgO and CaO and at the (100) MgO/CaO interfaces is presented. We show that the ground state is found to be the O1-O1 bipolaronic configuration both in bulk oxides and at their interfaces. Moreover, the one-centered O2-O0 bipolaron was found to be metastable with its stability being enhanced at the interfaces compared to that in bulk oxides. Also, for several bipolaronic configurations, we analyzed possible transitions from O1-O1 to O2-O0. On the same line of reasoning, electron localization and polaron mobility in oxygen-deficient and Li-doped monoclinic tungsten trioxide has been studied. It is shown for WO3, that small polarons formed in the presence of oxygen vacancy prefer bipolaronic W5+-W5+ configuration rather than W6+-W4+ configuration, which is found to be metastable state. Also, it is demonstrated that the bipolarons are tightly bound to vacancies, and consequently exhibit low mobility in the crystal. On the other hand, we show that polarons formed as a result of Li intercalation are mobile and that they are being responsible for electrochromic properties discovered in the compound.

Spin-polaron formation in La-doped CaMnO3, with G-type antiferromagnetic structure, was also studied. We found that for this material, spin-polarons are stabilized due to the interplay of magnetic and lattice-effects at lower La concentrations and mostly due to the lattice contribution at larger concentrations. We show that the formation of SP is unfavourable in the C- and A-type antiferromagnetic phase, in agreement with previously reported experimental studies. We have also studied dynamical and temperature dependent properties of spin-polarons in this compound. We estimated material specific exchange parameters from density functional theory and found that 3D magnetic polarons in the Heisenberg lattice stabilize at slightly higher temperatures than in the case of 2D magnetic polarons. Next, we have proposed a method to calculate magnetic polaron hopping barriers and studied spin-polaron mobility CaMnO3 using additional methods such as atomistic spin dynamics and kinetic Monte Carlo. We make a suggestion of using this system in nano-technological applications.